It's Not Easy Being "Ugly"

So, I get an urgent message from daughter #3 late Wednesday night. Apparently she has just been informed that my grand daughter wants to make an ugly sweater for Friday's festivities at school. That means said sweater has to be made after school on Thursday...except that daughter has meetings back-to-back all day followed by her design business Christmas party that evening. And so, an SOS went out to Nana. I never mind these kind of "challenges"...although being the somewhat organized person that I am, I do prefer to have a bit more lead time...but, I digress.

So, as soon as Presley got home from school on Thursday, I picked her up and back to Nana's we came. She had an idea in her head but just needed Nana's stash of craft goodies. I will say, it really is not easy to make something ugly if it isn't in your nature. She kept trying to add things but they just kept making it cuter. In the end, she stopped where she wanted to stop. Nana had some ideas to "tacky" it up even more but she wasn't having it. I think she was pretty proud of herself...and we just managed to get it done before time for bed! It's amazing how long Creative genius takes to accomplish. Lol

And then, there was this.

Even though I had lots of stuff on the to-do list, it wasn't stuff I wanted "to do". Lol And so, when I saw something on a craft site that I follow, I wanted to give it a try. Don't know why...for some reason it just spoke to me.

Now this site does mostly primitive crafts. For quite a while, I decorated with primitives. My taste has changed since then but I find myself still drawn to rusty, chippy, grungy. Almost everything done on this site uses coffee stained materials. The Mason jar ring sunflowers that I did back in the fall came from here and I did coffee stain that stuff and, I probably would have done it again this time except for the fact that I was impatient...imagine that? I wanted to sit down and get going and not have to wait for stuff to dry. And so, off I went.

This is 16 gauge wire and Warm and Natural cut into 1" strips.

It is actually a little tricky to get the tip of the wire covered without everything slipping so I ended up putting little drops of hot glue every so often. It helps to wrap the cane twice with the batting and it is still a bit inconsistent but, remember, these ARE supposed to be primitive.

Then, wrap it with about a 1/2" strip of red felt. Now remember, in the original, these materials would be coffee stained so a lot darker than they are...and, I think I might have liked that but, too late!

The last step is to cover them with Elmer's glue and sprinkle them with clear glitter. Again, the originals were sprinkled with mica flakes and, I like them so much better. Since that are larger, they tend to fill in the difference in thickness of the the felt but, I can not find them locally and I wasn't about to wait for an on-line order. This will work for now and if I ever find the mica, I can give them another coat.

Since I did have to buy the wire, I decided to just make as many candy canes as the wire permitted...and that turned out to be 9. Of course, once they were done, I really had no idea what I wanted to do with them so I just started sticking them wherever I could. Instead of  "Where's Waldo" we will be playing "Where's the Candy Cane" in my house this year Lol Here are some of my ideas but we all know that that is subject to change momentarily!

This is my favorite.

After looking at these pictures, I realize that I must really prefer the candy canes against some greenery because that is about the only places I have put them...so far.

Daughter #3 is on her way over so I will get going for now but I will be back with more of the tour. Stay safe and stay well.

Moving Along!

Once again a week that looked like it was going to be pretty empty turned into a fun, busy time. I'm thinking I had better get a bit more of our tour posted before it is Christmas and there are no days left...time is moving so quickly! So, let's head into the kitchen.

I love that little wreath hanging on the cutting board. I grabbed it at the Target Dollar Spot when things were first coming out. There were a few others but they were pretty beaten up and missing greenery so I decided to wait and see if more came in. If they did, I wasn't there to see them and there are none left to be had. I'm not sure where I wanted to use them but for $3, they are pretty nice...maybe next year?

With Christmas cookie making in the near future, I just decided that I wanted a bit more of my counter freed up so I got rid of the basket that used to sit here that held seasonal dish towels and moved the soaps and sponges to that side of the sink. With just the towels on the other side, I have a deeper space for all of my baking needs. I also put the large flour and sugar canisters into the pantry. I am thinking about even putting my toaster away for awhile. The only time I use it is when the kids are here and I could easily get it back out. That would free up a lot of space on the counter as well...we shall see. One of the things I have always wanted to do was to make my two height bar drop down to one height so that the kids could all gather around for baking, cookies and even crafting. It is a pretty large project and would probably involve new counters so, I haven't jumped into it just yet.

So that is the kitchen for this year. I am heading back to something I just decided I "had" to do...I will share soon. Until then, stay safe and stay tuned.

HoHoHo

I may still have a few little tweaks to go but, since those will involve a trip to the stores and I'm not doing that today, I thought I might as well get the Christmas tour going. It was pretty bleak and dreary when I took these pictures so things were even harder to photograph than usual. Hopefully you can feel the holiday cheer in spite of them.

The house really looks so pretty at night when all of the icicles are lit. Hopefully I can get a shot of that tonight.

Come on in. I left a lot of the living room decor much as it was last year. I think I am just drawn to lots of greenery and red and green. I guess I'm pretty traditional and it seems that no matter how hard I try to mix it up, I keep coming back to this. I'm not sure if that makes me really boring or just someone who knows what she likes. Lol

I actually bought the "merry" sign for the TV unit in the family room but I didn't like what I had here last year, so I made the switch.

I still love the "toy" wreath that I made so many years ago. Some of those ornaments were mine from the tree I used to have in my bedroom when I was a little girl so I'm pretty sure they truly qualify as antique now...just like me. Lol

And, looked who popped in on me for the weekend. My daughter and her husband were out of town so the kids and the puppers came and spent the weekend here. We kept it all very laid back and just filled the days with a Gator game, lots of Yahtzee and Gin Rummy, a Christmas movie, lots of food and treats and, of course, lots of laughs! These three can keep me on my toes but I love it. I truly can't believe how quickly they are growing up!

And, one last picture to end this year's football seasons. Trinity Catholic played a really good semi-final game but in the end the other team won. I know the kids were disappointed but I know they were also very proud of themselves for making it this far in a year of all kinds of crazy!

So that is the start of the tour for this year. I am off to make a list of all of the other things still needing to be done. Now that I have my new range, perhaps I can bake some cookies without constantly checking the oven temps...fingers crossed. Stay safe and stay tuned.